The Other Side
by e-addi
Summary: A series of short stories to accompany Carpe Noctis. Features thoughts of other characters regarding my OC, Stella. Accepting requests for scenes involving Carpe Noctis verse, though I can't guarantee I'll write all of them. Episode Kingsglaive: "The Kingsglaive may have been founded by King Regis. But their loyalty was to Princess Stella."
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:** So yeah, I'll be posting side stories and stuff. Mostly other people's POV on Stella, but I'll post some scenes from Stella's childhood and other things too! Drop a request and I might write it. No guarantees but I'll try my best! Please enjoy the Kingsglaive's view on Stella!

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 _Episode Kingsglaive_

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When Princess Stella Lucis Caelum started training with the Kingsglaive a few months after its founding, most did not know how to treat her. After all, she was the princess of their Kingdom and yet here she was slumming it up and training just as hard as any Glaive. She was nowhere near the spoiled princess they had expected when they first came to Insomnia. When she started hanging around after training sessions, making fast friends with Nyx, Crowe and Libertus, they only thought she was different for someone bearing royal blood.

When Princess Stella started talking to the others within the Kingsglaive, they did not know what to make of it. They would have understood her friendship with Nyx and Crowe. The two were among the ones to adapt to their new powers loaned from the King the fastest and easiest. There was a bit of confusion as to why Libertus, who still puked when warping occasionally at the time was included in the small group she had gathered for herself, but ultimately put it to his connection to Nyx.

But the Princess persisted. Insisting on getting to know everyone within the Glaive. She wanted to get to know them, to listen to their stories and their woes. She wanted to be there for them, to comfort and support them when everything seemed too much. She wanted to be more than just a princess to them. She wanted to be their comrade in arms even when she could not fight alongside them. She wanted to _befriend_ them.

Slowly, very slowly, some of the glaives opened up. Some were more accepting to befriending the warm and kind princess who fussed over them after every mission and bugged them about their birthdays so she could get them presents. Others were more reluctant but ended up being dragged into impromptu lunches consisting of cup noodles topped with behemoth meat anyways. Before they knew it, they were greeting her as enthusiastically as she did them.

As Niflheim grew bolder and stronger and started taking more and more territory from Lucis and subsequently their homes, Stella worked just as hard to ensure the people of their homes always had a chance to come into Insomnia or Lestallum. As years went by, the Kingsglaive started noticing that despite their homes belonging and suffering under Niflheim rule, the residents were still being properly taken care of with regular drops of food and necessities by Hunters.

At first, they had simply thought Lucian Hunters had taken it upon themselves to help their fellows that had been conquered by the enemy. But one day, one of the Glaives overheard the Crownsguard's Marshal, Cor Leonis grumbling about the Princess sneaking out of the Crown City to commission Hunters to deliver those drops.

Gratefulness overcame them, along with a sense of confusion and wariness. What could a princess of the Lucian line gain by doing such things? Was she planning on winning their loyalty this way? It wasn't until Crowe had glared at them to near death when she heard the conversation concerning the topic did they find out why.

Princess Stella was just that caring about all those that lived in Lucis. She took her duties as Princess to the throne seriously and did all she could with the limited power she had and then some to ensure the best possible for her people that were in need. Poverty levels around Lucis lowered, more Havens were popping up, outposts were being lit up with energy powered from Lestallum's Exineris Company, less people were dying in the night.

Then Nyx told them of one of the promises she made to herself. Her promise to reclaim the homes of her people, of the people of Lucis from Niflheim's grasps. Her vow to herself to protect those who look to the Lucian royals for guidance and protection. There were still some that were skeptical but most of the Glaives were ardently behind her just for her self-imposed oath.

After Niflheim's sudden retreat and subsequent visit from an envoy, Princess Stella got swamped with work. Occasionally, they would see her running around the Citadel guarded mostly by the Crownsguard. When the announcement of the treaty came, they didn't know what to think. Was this the end? Was all the fighting they had done for nothing?

Nyx, Crowe, Libertus and Pelna Khara were steadfast in their support, obviously knowing something that the rest did not know. But none of them pried. Despite the growing trepidation and distrust against the Princess, all of them knew that sometimes while Princess Stella was loose in information she wasn't supposed to tell them, she would still tell a few. Whom she told were never the same people, though Nyx, Crowe and Libertus were the ones she told the most. And even that was because they were the ones to spend most of their free time with her.

Even so, resentment and distrust ran high as the treaty signing drew closer. Even if everyone could see her distraught when Crowe died and Libertus quit. And then, orders came to deploy and rescue Lady Lunafreya and prevent a Niflheim fleet from flying onto Insomnia. As they finished gearing up for the mission, Princess Stella appeared before them, breathless from running all the way from the Throne Room.

If most of the Kingsglaive were honest, while her speech and promise was inspiring, it wasn't really things they didn't know about her. By now, the glaives all knew of her conviction on reclaiming Lucis. It was when she asked of them to come _home_.

Home. Something that most of them had lost when Niflheim invaded their towns and regions. Something that they had thought would take _years_ of fighting that didn't even guarantee they would reclaim them. Something that they had thought they didn't have.

But they did.

 _Princess Stella_ was their home. She was the light of their lives, always holding out a guiding hand with a happy grin and endless fretting. She had given them a home away from the home they had lost. That and nothing else solidified their wavering loyalty and respect to the Princess of Lucis. A promise to come _home._ Home was where the heart is and their heart was their when several of their own turned traitor against them, that loyalty proved itself in gold when a few traitors turned into double agents, their princess's words ringing in their minds.

The Kingsglaive may have been founded by King Regis. But their loyalty was to Princess Stella.


	2. Chapter 2

Episode Nyx

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If you had told Nyx he would be dying because of some sort of ancient bull shit that apparently haunted the Lucian royal bloodline, he would've told you to get your head checked. Woe is him because apparently, he _was_ going to die because of some ancient ancestral bull shit for the sake of safeguarding the future his princess wanted to protect and see through.

He could feel his life draining away by the second as the sun inched its way up into the sky, lighting the horizon with a beautiful haze of purple, blue and orange. Unsurprisingly, he compared the scenery to Stella.

 _Stella._

Nyx smiled softly into the rising sun, even as the skin of his arm broke away from being burned and was carried away by the wind. He had wanted to survive tonight, if only to fulfil that date. To see the new year's fireworks with Crowe, Libertus and Stella again. He mused on his thoughts. As a refugee kid coming from a war torn Galahd, he had never thought he would end up like this.

When he joined the Kingsglaive as a teen wanting nothing more than to reclaim his throne and to help the King that had saved him, he didn't really think he was the best of them all. But he liked to think he was better than most. He was the one that adapted the quickest to the new power that flowed through his veins, granted by King Regis of Lucis. He was the one that went out of his way to train and get stronger and faster. He was the one who wouldn't leave his comrades behind.

The so called 'Hero'.

It wasn't like he had set out to be a 'Hero', he just had a sense of justice that nagged at him a lot. He _couldn't_ help himself from helping others when he was able to do it. Something that he could not have done for his mother and sister. Nyx had joined the Kingsglaive to be useful and to reclaim his home… But he found another home somewhere along the way.

Libertus had followed him into the Kingsglaive. A friend from Galahd that he knew since he was in diapers. Somewhere down the road, he had become more of a brother than a friend. He was a little too quick to anger and judgmental to a fault, but he had a good heart. Nyx was grateful to have a loyal friend in Libertus and he proved that in gold when he ran a car into his former mentor.

Crowe Altius had been a surprise. Slight little thing with a talent for the King's magic, she rose through the ashes of a newbie and became the best at wielding magic in less than eight months. She had control only seen in the Royal Family and she knew it. She was nothing like his own late sister, but she had become one nonetheless. Crowe was a proud little thing, but had a certain softness for the only female friend she had.

Which brought him to his 'home'.

Stella Lucis Caelum, Princess to the Lucian throne and one of his closest friends. A brilliant Light in the dreary city of Insomnia. At first glance, she was nothing more than a pretty princess. All smiles and regal kindness. But she was different from the other royalty. She had no problem being seen with 'commoners' and 'outsiders'. At one point it even looked like she _preferred_ hanging out with the Glaives instead of people of similar station as her. The things she got up to for them… From ensuring the people left in their former homes were taken care of, to making the effort to make the Glaives feel like _they_ had a home in Insomnia. She was beautiful, both inside and out.

And Nyx was in love with her.

It was a gradual thing, really. At first, he saw her as nothing more than a princess. The daughter of the King he was thankful to for saving him. Then, she started training with them and talking with them and she became a friend. Her obvious preference for his company, as well as Crowe and Libertus's made Nyx see her as a close friend. He never thought of her in a way that went beyond close friendship.

Until that night, a few years ago when he had come home from a skirmish, heavily wounded but alive. He had found her sitting on the chair next to his hospital bed, shoulders slumped, hair a right mess and bags under her eyes. When he had woken up, she had given him the most breathtaking relieved smile and embraced him, giving thanks to the gods for his survival. He could feel her tears drop on to his neck, the trembling of her shoulders as she tried to hold herself together.

He hadn't known he had become someone important enough in her heart to warrant such worry and attention. But he had and Nyx didn't know it back then, but it was at that point that his heart had decided to start falling. He could do nothing else in the face of such kindness and care and love that she had shown to him. He knew she didn't love him the way he was falling for her. But he fell anyway.

Stella had a big heart, but she loved a few. Her closest family and friends were the only ones that people could safely say she truly 'loved'. And even then he knew nothing would come out of him falling for the princess. He was one of the few whom Stella had told about Ravus Nox Fleuret. A blind man could see how deeply in love with the former Tenebraean prince Stella was. It was the sort of love he knew he could never really compete with. So even as he fell in love deeper and deeper with her by the day, he stayed silent.

Instead, he swore his fealty to her. Swearing to himself that he would love and protect her to the best of his abilities. She was his princess, the woman he loved and swore loyalty to. There was never any question about it. When the past kings of Lucis questioned his motivations for putting on the ring, he had already known his answer. A future that he could never have imagined but one that Stella had always wanted. For her, for her future, for her dreams, he would gladly give his life.

His heart started slowing and he took in the sight of the sun rising in the horizon one last time.

"Not a bad way to go at all."


End file.
